Kisumu Cows Take a Ride for Xmas - December 2014

So today, around 4:16PM East African Time, two cows hired the famous Kisumu Tuktuk to take them away and up the Kajulu Hills of Kisumu for their Xmas holidays.

At first, a lighter took her head outta the window and kept enjoying the scenery while seemingly relating the marvelous views to someone inside. I thought it was talking to the driver.

Kumbe there was a co-cow napping inside the Tuktuk and which, after hearing the stories, decided to see the beauty of Dala with its own eyes!

Ghafla bin vuu, kufumba na kufumbua, puuuuuaaaaah, woooiii, pungulupangala...a red cow fell on the tarmac belly-first and was dragged painfully on the hot tarmac, in the hot Kisumu road, nearly frying itself in its own skin.

If you look very keenly, you can see cow-marks on the lami! Ai yawa!

All the while the cow-seatbelt was nyongaing (hanging the ill-fated, inquisitive cow as the stunned driver and conductor and light cow wondered where the fuck the other passenger had gone!

Soon all the occupants of the Tuktook, save for the lighter cow were out to save the suffering red cow. Meanwhile, the light brown cow sat in comfortably, whistling as she watched the drama.

Eh, Kisumu City of Governor Ranguma!

Suffice to say that I don't know if the cowsengers reached the destination of their Christmas Holiday bash safely, but i pray they will follow the notorious NTSA rules in future and avoid alcohol. I hope when Kristo is born on Thursday there will be some cows by the manger!

Merry Christmas all.

Daddy, Tears and Truth

57 minutes after she had burst into the house, she was still cusped i Hen her dad's arms, crying bitterly and worryingly sniffling. Tears soaked her dad's shirt, but like 21 years ago when he had consoled her after the death of her pet tadpole, he still stroked her head, held her tight in reassurance. He had always been there for her.

"Why? Why daddy?" She had enquired for 57 minutes, now going to an hour.

It scared him. Given a choice, he would rather she cried and sniffled than spear his heart with that searing question.

Really, he didn't know what had happened between Grace and her husband, never wanted to know. He had always kept a distance from their marriage, reasoning that the two would make their own life somehow. This time though, the pain of her daughter's weeping tested his resolve. He was thinking that maybe, just maybe, he had to intervene.

"Why dad?" she asked again, after seven minutes of a pause with occasional sniffs.

She slowly raised up her head to face her dad, revealing reddened eyes and clear mucus and tears running down her cheeks and nose. Her dad froze! What person was crying on his bosom was not his daughter. Pain had deformed her.

"Why must people marry? Why did I have to marry?"

He choked.

"Tell me daddy. You always knew everything, tell me. Why?"

He felt his hands begin to sweat.

"You never raised a word against my marrying Richard when I broke the news. Why?"

His heart skipped a beat.

"Daddy tell me, why do people marry and live this pain? Why?" Grace broke into convulsing sobs and again hid her face on her dad's chest. He was profoundly hurt. And, despite his stoic attempts, the river banks of his eyes broke and tears flooded his face.

He wanted to tell her the truth but was afraid. For once. He knew she trusted him and believed in him. Ever since her childhood, 'Daddy' was the wise man who knew all. And he was always right too. Like God. Things happened like he said they would.

He wanted to tell her that people marry to get children. For companionship. He wanted to tell her that people married to fulfill their love. That lovers married. That those married were lovers! That it was orthodox to marry...adults just had to marry, to have sex. Legitimately. Responsibly. It even crossed his mind to quote the Good Book. 'It was God's divine plan', he thought to say.

Yet, he knew it was all lies. It  was all wrong drivel contrived and propagated to save face and avoid 'whys'. There was only one reason people married. And he knew it. But was afraid that maybe she wasn't grown up enough to accept it.

He breathed in and out. Hard.

Then...

Daddy gingerly held his daughter's head up and as she expectantly looked up to him, he wiped off her tears and running nose with his hands and wiped the wetness on his shirt. For a long loving minute, he looked her girl deep in her soul. He kept wiping her face of the streams of pain,  but he let his tears flow down unattended.

Grace had never known God, for that was her daddy to her, to cry. She sat up, shell-shocked.

"Daddy, what is it?"

"Babygirl...," for that is what he called her, "...people marry to dance".

She watched her dad. She saw his heart in his tears and he saw in her eyes the turmoil of confusion...and then, slowly the revelation clearing her eyes. He could see the enlightenment creeping into her. It was painful, yet, the joy of her daughter finally seeing the truth warmed his heart.

Her lips parted and slowly, almost in slow motion, she edged her face closer to her dad's.

"And dances last no longer than the song!" she whispered life's open truth. He nodded.

For a very long time, 26 years, they embraced and Grace savored the salvation. She became free.

The music had stopped and no tears or sniffles would strum the guitar or beat the drums to repeat the song.

Another song may play one day, but for now, there was nothing more to dance to. The dancing shoes had to be unlaced and a sip of water taken deservedly.

She kicked off her shoes, her eyes dried and she sniffled no more.

Many minutes later, Daddy tiptoed with the weight of her sleeping daughter and placed her on her narrow childhood bed. And tucked her in. He had never seen someone sleep so peacefully ever since the doctors told him that Lynnette, his wife, ‘had gone to sleep’.

© Oluoch-Madiang’, 2014

A DREAMER'S VALID PROPOSAL

Now, Lupita Amondi Nyong'o of P. O. Box 12 Years a Slave, New York, Amerka, look, you won an Oscar in America. Can you imagine? Eh? All the way from Nai, no, from the stony Seme, you left all the Luos and Kenyans and Mexicans named Oscar and won the Hollywood one. The real OSCAR! Congratulations. 

Word on the street is that Lupita is dreamingly marriable.

You see, dreaming in Seme is not a joke. There are no beds to dream on. Only huge boulders like Kit Mikayi and Maembe trees that produce dodo mango and numerous Mapera trees that you know how they grew. Si unajua?

Anyway, that is not the point. The point is that you have won OSCAR and now you are worth Mamillioni. I even heard it being said at the Bunge La Wananchi session at Jeevanjee that Theatrix Arts Ensemble cannot afford to cast you. Even Phoenix. That your Mamillions are more that those of Kenyan Dollar Millionaires. See? For just wearing long dresses and acting like a slave, you have gongad Chris Kirubi, Anil Shah, Evans Kidero, Kamlesh, Jimnah Mbaru and, I suspect, even Ouru. Even your dad can't you...hakuwezi kabisa!

Now, here is the deal, ok? Si you won? Yes! Si the world saw? Yes! Si you spoke well? Yes! Si you even got a tweet from State House of Kenya? Yes! Ok! I am writing to propose a deal. See, I have been dreaming. And si you talked about dreams? Yes! And I come from the bundus of Kenya, those 'Mwisho Wa Lami' places. Si you talked to the whole world about where one comes from? Yes! You see, I have been dreaming from huku Mwisho Wa Lami but I used to doubt those dreams. Until I heard you talking passionately about dreams and where someone comes from. Si you said, in front of your daddy, mummy and that big eyed bro of yours (I saw the big eyes on that popular Selfie that is better than Obama's at a funeral) that all dreams are valid? Yes! Now I know my dreams from Mwisho wa Lami are VALID.

Now here is where it gets interesting: Si you are not married? Yes!

From hapa Mwisho wa Lami, I have been validly dreaming that one day I will marry a single Luo black girl wielding a golden statue of OSCAR that cannot be demolished like ile ya makalasinga and who is known worldwide even by Vladimir Putin and who is richer than all the Kenyan millionaires plus Agwambo Baba put together. Here from Mwisho wa Lami I have been dreaming of marrying you. See? I have a dream! I have a dream that one day: from the prodigious boulders of Mwisho wa Lami; from the maembe and mapera bushes of Kenya; from the alcoblow streets of Mututho; from the digital taxes of Jubilee; I have a dream that one day, after the Men in Black have toppled Raila's tables I will be Anyang' Nyong'o's son-in-law!

Please Lupita Nyong'o, here I am on bended knee, make my dream valid!

Yours Faithfully,
Serikali Saidia Bachelor,
Mwisho wa Lami Passie,
WORD ON THE STREET.

PARTY OF BENEVOLENT DICTATORS OF KENYA (SOUTH NYANZA)

JoLuo of South Nyanza, realize they've been kanyagwad sana!

Eh, the street is talking. Word on the street is that some JoLuo Politicians from South Nyanza (Kuanzia Homabay mpaka huko chini Tarime, Tanzania) want to part ways from the Luos of Central Nyanza (Kuanzia kisumo hadi hukooo, Bol, South Sudan). Amaingly, Luo Nyanza has only two directions on the compass: South and Central, but do I say! Anyway, they want to divorce. Which is inevitable anyway...watatoka tu. They have even started a silent movement, the Street says, called Kalausi. Do you know Kalausi? Hee, kalausi is that thing we used to play in when we was childrens in Nakuru. It is some wind, that goes like a ring up, up, up while also shifting. Kisulisuli in Oswayo. See, we were told that if you can funika a kalausi using a karai, a huge snake would appear. Also, again the Streets za zamani told us if you can stand in the middle of a Kalausi you can okota a lot of money. So the South Nyanza guys now want a Kalausi. Isorait! Because even some JoLuo of those sides ahve asked them to "lead us out of this ODM!" They have identified, 1. The Slapper and 2. The Marrier as their leaders.

The problem is a Party. Not that where you are invited to eat. A Political party. They don't have one. They are shopping around.

Well, me, me I created a political Party a long time ago that I am not using. SO I want to give them to use to walk away from Central. For free...no briefcase, no cheques, no nini, no nini! If they are seriously seeking to challenge Johnny Walker, then I am giving Kidero and Otieno and all JoLuo of South Nyanza THE PARTY OF BENEVOLENT DICTATORS OF KENYA. They can even colonize Central Nyanza with this Party. So long as the tenets of the Party remain.

And what are those tenets? Eh? 

Well, read below.

PARTY OF BENEVOLENT DICTATORS OF KENYA 

(On Offer to JoLuo of All South Nyanza)

CONSTITUTION

A) The following shall be the structure of the Party

Party leader: DICTATOR GENERAL

Party Officials: DON’T WASTE TIME IN PETTY OFFICIALDOM

Symbol: WHIP (NYAHUNYO)

Democracy: THAT’S THE BEGINNING OF LAZINESS. DECISIONS MADE BY LOGIC!

Colors: NONE

Rallying Call: BY ALL MEANS NECESSARY!

Membership: BY FORCE

Vision: KENYA TO COLONIZE AFRICA BY 2017

B) Manifesto

1. PEOPLE FIRST. PEOPLE SECOND. PEOPLE THIRD.
2. FOOD: Self reliance. There will be no more importing of ANY foodstuffs. You shall produce enough to eat and process and export.
3. INFRASTRUCTURE: Kazi ngumu, Maisha bora. Nakuambia mtaunda miundo misingi mpende msipende!
4. HEALTH: There shall be Free Health Services for ALL.
5. SEX: Kenya will import only 2 million condoms per year and no one will be encouraged to have chilldren without a plan.
6. ALCOHOL: For every glass of chang’aa, wine, whisky, bluemoon etc., and for every bottle of beer you drink, you shall donate the equivalent amount in cash for road construction. This donation must be made before drinking.
7. EDUCATION: Part (a) - There will be no free education. It will be subsidized based on intellectual merit, i.e. students who attain a mark of 70% only will receive an educational subsidy. Why should we spend money on people who cannot grasp a thing in school? All education must be paid for. Part (b) - All Kenyans must attain the level of Secondary School Education
8. YOUTH: All young people (18-22 years) must give 2 years of Infrastructural National Service, INS. National ID cards and Secondary School certificates will only be issued  at the NYS.
9. No person below the age of 18 shall own a phone. MPESA registration, Passport requests, Travels Abroad etc will be processed at the production of a) Certificate of Completion of the National Infrastructural Service b) National ID card c) Certificate of Secondary Education.
10. TRIBES: The National Museums of Kenya shall own all Kenyan tribes. No senile elders or vulture politicians will be allowed to lay claim to ‘their’ tribe.
11. RIOTS: The National Army shall be given a free hand for 15 minutes to quell any university riots, Gor Mahia fans' hooliganism, tribal clashes and witch-hunting in Kisii. All demonstrations and strikes shall be held, by booking, at the National Protest Park (each County and District must have its Protest Parks) grounds, with each protesting group (teachers, doctors, airport controllers, touts, lawyers, sex workers, homosexuals, busybodies etc.) given 1 hours 30 minutes. All Cabinet Secretaries concerned MUST attend, without fail, the striking/protesting session of their respective charges.
12. SPORTS: All Kenyans must play at least one physical sport and Chess.
13. GENDER: All Kenyans are created equal

C) Party Symbol

The Party shall have no symbol.

BE WARNED, BE READY, ENJOY LIFE. VOTE DICTATORSHIP, VOTE BENEVOLENCE!

So there we have it, if JoLuo of South Nyanza are serious, wanivutie waya.

Word on the streets!

Fuck, I am Heterosexual: Long Live Homosexuals!

-->

Word on the street has it that in a well-timed, well-choreographed move, my friend and colleague writer Ken Binyavanga Wainaina, via various web media, announced that he is, has always been, a homosexual. For good measure, he confessed that he is a failed heterosexual. Good for him! Well choreographed and well timed I say.

Immediately thereafter, follow-on reactions, discombobulation, messages of support and congratulations, hullabaloo, shock, front-page hogwash and pure disappointment took over. Distraught and amused and amazed gasps. Binyavanga himself now launched into a frenzy of Facebook posts with homosexual themes, taunting Nigeria, Uganda, mourning homosexual dead, elevating gay positions etc. Eloquence gained. Platform appropriated. I will be wrong if I claimed that Binya has not previously been open about his defense of the gays. He has, only that this time round, with the attention of all nincompoops mustered, he was screwing them real deep. Good for him.

But then I also began, from that day to this, to receive pleas from simpletons to explain what the matter was or is with my friend. Did he just say he is gay? (Dude, go back to school if you can’t comprehend a writing?) Is it for real? (Girl, you wanna give him a shot so you believe?). Did you always know he was gay? (What change would it make if I didn’t know?). Gosh, I only thought he enjoyed plaiting and coloring his hair! (Well, he has more hairs I would guess!). So what’s your take on B Wainaina coming out? (I give no rat’s ass if he comes in or interrupts coitus gal!). And I get irritated. For most of these who posed these rhetorical queries to me have never, in the first place, ever ‘come out’! I don’t know if they are straight or gay! Or both. Hypocrites. Maybe they assume that I assume that they are heterosexual…but again, they would be the quickest to deny a heterosexual a shot if requested! So what are they? Mimi sijui! Shida zenu na Binyavanga msiniletee.

Interesting things have arisen since this creatively written ‘confession’ by The Binj. Take these empty-heads who have now come out to declare that they support him. How can you support Binya? Don’t you think he is much capable of supporting himself? What support does he need anyway? Others are congratulating him for bravery. What bravery is there for one to declare he is gay on a community that interacts daily with gays, and have not created an environment negative to their living? For let’s face it: Kenya is not a country where homophobia reigns. What reigns in Kenya is the curiosity, the imagination of penile-anal intercourse between man and man. Really! We do not care that men and women have anal sex. Do we? We are just curious how men make it, period. Don’t we even have a stock threat to enemies that, “nitakufira mkundu”? Don’t we all have these guys we know whom we ‘suspect’ are gay? Don’t we have girl-friends who confess their love for the salon service they get from this particular gay hairdresser who has queer dressing and talking code? Don’t we all laugh behind the backs of these infantile homosexual acquaintances who try to force their gayism, throwing masculine buttocks in desperate imitation of females, contorting sopranos, spotting red lipstick that make them look like black cats that have stolen pyramid quails? Do we not dabble in our own rumors over which of our politicians ‘huchapwa nyuma’ and which one is living a double life? Don’t we go to Nakumatt just to see gay condoms and adult nappies? See, we are accommodating. Only stupidly and idly curious. And should stop this hypocritical shock with Binya’s revelation.

Me, me I don’t mind ‘homos’. Which heterosexual man will mind that another man is a homosexual? Shit! It lowers competition for women, see! Right?

So live and let live! Of course Binyavanga has his reasons for ‘coming out’. Nigeria has just passed controversial laws on gay marriage, Uganda is grappling with how to state and package their national position on homosexuality while at the same time not lose donor monies and the West are busy forcing themselves into normalizing homosexuality. And therein lies where Binya ameona mbele. Binya has interests in Nigeria, and what better adventure being an activist for ‘gay rights’ at this hour, in this context, watched by this world? Binya has Ugando-Rwandese connections. What platform and opportunity then is this for a dude to redefine himself and take on the coming-out fad! For within that short week of his declaration, Binya has become the messianic homosexual hero of the silent gay. Homosexuals are happy that he and his influence are on their side. Good for him.

We nevertheless need to ask ourselves, what is this heterosexual obsession with homosexuals? Cannot heterosexuals have their sex in peace and leave others alone! Is it your mother’s sex they have stolen from you? For heterosexuals have this irritating, self-righteous moralistic scorn that they bandy around, even sometimes ostensibly meting out ‘just’ punishments and doling out the rights that homosexuals should enjoy. They claim that homosexuals are the worst of the human lot, will corrupt our living and put our children in danger. Yet I swear, aren’t heterosexuals the greatest testament of primitivity: the greatest perpetrators of rapes are heterosexuals; the most corrupt politicians are those that bandy their heterosexual exploits; heterosexuals were the greatest murderers during the 2007/8 post-election violence; heterosexuals have the most irritating dress codes, sagging trousers to reveal sweaty, smelly ass cracks and spotting lows to parade cleavages of reviling stretch-marked jugs (not to mention the irritating hips and thighs in Prime Time News! Nkt!); heterosexuals (while denying homosexuals marriage) are the worst breakers of marriage, killers of wives and husbands and children! (Fucked up life I say: Celibates bonding heterosexuals in marriage, heterosexuals denying homosexuals a marriage they’ve failed to master, homosexuals demanding a marriage they can’t fruit. Mad shit life I tell you). Frothing, righteous heterosexuals have shown that their sexual orientation has not been good for the earth. So what makes it ok for these thickheads to parade their conformity to a false ‘normalcy’? A false, plastic smile ‘naturalness’? Do not heterosexuals realize that they have their own filthy linen to clean, logs to saw off their eyes before they are concerned with the anuses and penises of two consenting male adults? If heterosexuals find it vile that homosexuals are a moral danger, then they should equally own and clean their vile heterosexual madness and filth. Heterosexuals (may) have to come together with homosexuals at some point to shake hands and share ejaculations of their orientations over coffee without ‘devilling’ each. Really.

That then, as I rush to my conclusion, leads me to asking then, what is being gay? Is it a qualification like a degree that annoints one the privelege to be (or do all that appertains to being) stupid, weird, illogical, and irrational? Is being gay an ideology? A style? A briefcase political quest? What makes homosexuals think we are so daft that they can shout the impossible from the rooftops, like Binyavanga allegedly realizing he is a homosexual at age 5? Age 5! Fuck, at age five you should have been busy getting diarrhea, practicing ABC, fearing injections and running after imaginary cars and crying over nothing: not being sexual! Homosexual. What makes this community of homosexuals believe that they have a unique right above other humans and that they should be kid-gloved and treated with a certain artificial acceptance? What makes them consider it heroism to come out! Can’t they just fuck and shut the fuck up and show up in the office the next day kujenga taifa? Are gays so clueless, so empty in creativity, so idle that they should spend their days thrusting ill-fitting clad in the name of free expression, choke us with deathly-applied deodorant and walk as if their orgy of ass-fucking is about to burst on their fronts? Even women who have anal sex don’t go shouting about it, do they? What is this sex war between heterosexuals (I hesitate to believe they are ‘straight)’ and homosexuals?

So fuck, I am heterosexual and it is no deal at all. Let me be and let the homosexual be and if we get some STI or some such shit, lets seek competent medical attention haraka. We’ve all got some living to do.

Word on the Streets!